Editorial November 23, 1974 Issue

The Bible and the Athlete

Naomi Price

People who are interested in athletics may wonder what practical use the Bible can be to them. They may ask what good a book of ancient history, sermons, and religious poetry can be when they're playing football or hockey or are battling with difficult conditions on the ski slopes.

Yet the Bible contains a lot that directly applies to things that are very important in the realm of sports and athletics.

For instance, there are passages that tell of the way people who depend on God are sustained and kept safe by Him—how their strength and physical abilities, as well as their mental powers, are increased. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength," the prophet assures us. "They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."^{Isa. 40:31;} ("That passage was the greatest blessing to me," commented one young woman after a gruelling cross-country ski run in a snow storm. "Without it I doubt if I could have kept going.") In their poetic way, some of these scriptural writers compare the freedom and dominion that God gives His people with the astonishing agility of animals. "He will make my feet like hinds' feet," says the prophet Habakkuk. "And he will make me to walk upon mine high places."^{Hab. 3:19;} What mountain climber would not at some time be glad to trade his own clumsiness for the surefootedness of the hind? And why should not men and women claim this nimbleness for their own since man is the climax of God's creation and He made man in His own likeness?